Starship Asterisk*

Satellite Station and Southern Skies

Explanation: This clear night skyscape captures the colorful glow of aurora australis, the southern lights, just outside the port city of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, planet Earth. As if staring into the dreamlike scene, the Tasmanian Earth Resources Satellite Station poses in the center, illuminated by nearby city lights. Used to receive data from spacebased Earth observing instruments, including NASA's MODIS and SeaWiFS, the station was decommissioned in 2011 and dismantled only recently, shortly after the picture was taken on April 30. Still shining in southern skies though, the central bulge of our Milky Way galaxy and two bright satellite galaxies the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds appear in the frame. The Small Magellanic Cloud shines through the fainter red auroral band.

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Awesome View....Awesome Pic....

I am wondering.....If and WHEN, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds JOIN with the galaxy.....will they become Globular Clusters????

As has been suggested of Omega Centauri Globular Cluster....the other day.

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Boomer12k wrote:Awesome View....Awesome Pic....

I am wondering.....If and WHEN, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds JOIN with the galaxy.....will they become Globular Clusters????

As has been suggested of Omega Centauri Globular Cluster....the other day.

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The LMC is already known to contain ~60 globular clusters. But for those GCs which are thought to originate from captured dwarf galaxies, the GC is only the remnant of the dwarf's core, the rest having been absorbed into the mix of the larger galaxy.

so southern lights are always red / yellow and northern lights always blue / green
i presume this is evidence of the polarity of earths magnetic field drawing whatever particles towards their respective poles from the solar wind
so which pole is considered + (pos) and which one is - (neg)
i've always had the notion that Antarctica is the true top of the earth and that perhaps the sun does rise in the 'west', and perhaps the planets do go around the sun clockwise.
of all the exoplanet solar systems we've discovered, is there any indication of some kind of regularity of how solar systems spin relative to the galactic plane?
i guess there probably isn't enough evidence since kepler cant really detect other systems where the planets dont pass in front of their stars
if i'm not mistaken the kepler orrery we see on youtube always show every system spinning counter-clockwise, is this an accurate representation from our vantage point or is this just 'normalizing' all the data?
our solar system is what 40 degress off kilter from the galactic plane?
thanks for imparting some knowledge on me.

i know that rotation direction is just a chosen point of reference, but i'm just trying to beckon the question of uniformity throughout the milky way

eigerzoom wrote:so southern lights are always red / yellow and northern lights always blue / green

I'll stop right there. It is not true.

But this article may answer some of your questions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_ ... roximation

Edit: the notion of positive vs negative polarity is entirely contrived. It is based on the human decision to nominate positive and negative electric charge in the way we do. So there is no true top of the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, or the world.

Glad LMC, SMC, and our Galaxy have not been dismantled!

Nitpicker wrote:Edit: the notion of positive vs negative polarity is entirely contrived. It is based on the human decision to nominate positive and negative electric charge in the way we do. So there is no true top of the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, or the world.

You mean James Cagney has been wrong all these years? Oh well.

Nitpicker wrote:Edit: the notion of positive vs negative polarity is entirely contrived. It is based on the human decision to nominate positive and negative electric charge in the way we do. So there is no true top of the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, or the world.

You could say that our current way of determining negative or positive is backwards, though. Ben had a 50% chance of getting it right... 50% odds aren't very good.
I have shamelessly taken this information from an MIT lecture Pat and I were watching the other day and conveyed it in a way that makes it look like my own thought.

Beyond wrote:You mean James Cagney has been wrong all these years?

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Oh whell.

Being on top wasn't all that swell for him, was it?

Nitpicker wrote:

eigerzoom wrote:so southern lights are always red / yellow and northern lights always blue / green

I'll stop right there. It is not true.

So true Nitpicker, but is there any difference at all between northern and southern aurora, other than location? From what I've read there isn't any difference.

But this article may answer some of your questions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_ ... roximation

Nah. It just raises more questions, like Why does the Earth's magnetic field flip, When will it next flip, What will happen when it flips, and Who gives a flip (are Austrailans rooting for it to flip).

Edit: the notion of positive vs negative polarity is entirely contrived. It is based on the human decision to nominate positive and negative electric charge in the way we do. So there is no true top of the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, or the world.

Stated like a true southerner. In the interest of breaking with Northward bias (and because I am partly contrarian) I propose that henceforth half of all maps, globes, star charts, etc. should be produced with South on top. Top of the evening to you sir.

Bruce

Beautiful image with lots going on!

Someone mentioned the magnetic +/- of our poles - the geologist in the house reminded me that the poles "flip" over geologic time.

BDanielMayfield wrote:In the interest of breaking with Northward bias (and because I am partly contrarian) I propose that henceforth half of all maps, globes, star charts, etc. should be produced with South on top.

Tis but an occident of culture that we display maps with north up. I suggest that we correct that and orient them instead with east up.

Chris Peterson wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:In the interest of breaking with Northward bias (and because I am partly contrarian) I propose that henceforth half of all maps, globes, star charts, etc. should be produced with South on top.

Tis but an occident of culture that we display maps with north up. I suggest that we correct that and orient them instead with east up.

We could start by changing our maps, I suppose.

Ann

Chris Peterson wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:In the interest of breaking with Northward bias (and because I am partly contrarian) I propose that henceforth half of all maps, globes, star charts, etc. should be produced with South on top.

Tis but an occident of culture that we display maps with north up. I suggest that we correct that and orient them instead with east up.

But West up would be better.

Just went and looked up 'occident' on purpose. Really.

at that distance, how wide is the central bulge ?

For the record, I generally like the convention of North up (especially when I'm moving northwards). But it is just as contrived as positive and negative polarity. I am but a mere human. As for the Northern Hemisphere, you're welcome to it.

Maybe my right hand is actually my left hand and my left hand is actually my right hand... I could be left handed.

eigerzoom wrote: of all the exoplanet solar systems we've discovered, is there any indication of some kind of regularity of how solar systems spin relative to the galactic plane?

No. The fact that we see planets found both from transits and Doppler motions all over the sky says that, as well as you can tell from the few hundred cases (Kepler doesn't help much here, since all its discoveries are in one small area of sky), the planes of planetary systems are randomly distributed with respect to the plane of the Milky Way. Our own system with an angle of about 60 degrees between its plane and the Milky Way plane would fit this (lack of) pattern.

geckzilla wrote:Maybe my right hand is actually my left hand and my left hand is actually my right hand... I could be left handed.

Imagine if electric charge was nominated as left and right, instead of positive and negative.

Or imagine if we used positive and negative to describe handedness ... your positive hand might be considered your better/favoured hand. This would be a useful convention in some contexts. I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as a teenager, and I've been thinking about quality ever since.

Nitpicker wrote:Or imagine if we used positive and negative to describe handedness ... your positive hand might be considered your better/favoured hand.

Well, that's pretty much where dexter and sinister have been taken...

Chris Peterson wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:Or imagine if we used positive and negative to describe handedness ... your positive hand might be considered your better/favoured hand.

Well, that's pretty much where dexter and sinister have been taken...

I've seen a few episodes of Dexter, so I don't think we are talking about the same thing at all.